Two years ago, joining a crescendo of protest around the Arab world, Syrians launched a peaceful uprising against the autocratic rule of Syrian President Bashar Assad. That dissent—met by a brutal government crackdown—has morphed into a bitter, grinding civil war between a fraying regime and a patchwork of rebel forces. The U.N. claims more than 70,000 people have died in 24 months of bloodshed, while the chaos has made over a million Syrians refugees.

The world watched the conflict first through a mess of grainy YouTube footage posted by rebels and then the courageous reporting of both local and foreign journalists. Syria occupies complex geopolitical terrain and the international community has floundered in its attempts to end a war that’s already spilling across borders in the region. The Syrian opposition is seen to be disorganized and disparate, while at least one leading rebel unit on the ground has been blacklisted by the U.S. State Department for its perceived terrorist connections. Few consider a decisive military intervention, such as the U.S.’s controversial invasion of Iraq a decade ago, a realistic option.

But while the international community quibbles over how to best arm the rebels and forge peace, the fragile political consensus—the tacit compromises, the cynical bargains between elites, the networks of patronage and support—that bound the Syrian nation-state under the Assads has unraveled. On the world map, Syria remains a country. On the ground, it has devolved into a battlefield warred over by sectarian fiefdoms, guerrilla outfits, extremist militias, criminal gangs and a regime clinging grimly to its dwindling sources of power and legitimacy.

Click and drag the slider or the descriptions below the image to compare:

DigitalGlobe

The neighborhood of Yalda, in south central Damascus. A whole stretch of the area above the local mosque has been reduced to rubble.

The disintegration of a country is a hard thing to fathom. But it can be documented. DigitalGlobe, a commercial satellite company that provides high quality images of the earth, has been tracking the Syrian war with its technology; in some instances, it has been able to compare the ravaged status quo of Syria’s present with the relative normalcy of a decade ago. The contrast is stark: whole neighborhoods that once teemed with life in historic cities like Damascus, Homs and Aleppo are now wastelands of rubble. Artillery fire has turned wheat fields and olive groves into warrens pock-marked with craters. DigitalGlobe says it has satellite imagery, too, of long slit trenches dug in the earth that have been used as mass graves.

DigitalGlobe

A false color infrared image of the Bab Amr neighborhood in Homs shows the damage wrought by the Syrian Army in the space of two weeks in February 2012; dark splotches scarring the rural fields, seen in the second picture, are evidence of shelling.

The company has five satellites whizzing around in orbit right now, taking high-resolution pictures for a wide range of purposes. Their cameras can zoom down to photograph even the distinct windshield of a car. In Syria, says Stephen Wood, vice president of DigitalGlobe Analytics, they have been able to monitor the “very systematic, very closely targeted” campaign of violence waged by the Assad regime against bastions of dissent.

In Bab Amr, a neighborhood in the city of Homs shelled relentlessly last year by government forces, DigitalGlobe watched the devastation unfold in real time. “We could very clearly see evidence of smoke rings coming off an artillery position and the corresponding down range impact further afield,” says Wood. “We actually saw them firing on Bab Amr,” says Joe Bermudez, senior analyst at DigitalGlobe Analytics. “The level of destruction is heavily indicative of heavy weapons. And the opposition simply didn’t have that caliber of weaponry.” Infamously, the government’s February 2012 assault there led to the deaths of British journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Rémi Ochlik. William Daniels, a French photojournalist on assignment for TIME, was also holed up then in Bab Amr—see the photographic chronicle of his ordeal, which became a TIME cover story, here.

DigitalGlobe

A sequence of imagery, taken over nine days, showing the digging, operation and filling of a mass grave at the Daryya Mosque, south of Damascus.

American diplomats and international rights groups have already pointed to DigitalGlobe’s imaging research of Syria in their analyses of the ongoing conflict. Wood believes the precision of their satellite technology presents a new phase in watching wars. “The industry that we belong to can shed a light of transparency on modern conflict the world hasn’t seen before,” he says.

DigitalGlobe

Before and after images of the Ard as-Sabbagh district of Aleppo. Many buildings here have been either damaged or wholly razed since the conflict began.

In the era of smartphones, we’ve grown accustomed to satellite imagery. Digital maps guide us daily; we toggle Google Earth with an almost cold practicality. That makes DigitalGlobe’s mapping of the Syrian war all the more chilling. When we look at our planet from above, we take for granted its human content. Not so in Syria. “It’s been a compelling experience as an analyst and as an individual,” says Bermudez, who has watched the war from his company’s headquarters in Colorado. “You start to realize how massive this event has been—and how staggering, too, the extent of human suffering.”

My question is: Why should I care if the Syrians want to murder and kill each other for "freedom" or whatever ?? What's in it for me ?

Let the Iranians fund Assad and let the Salafist's Arab state support their precious rebels. And let the Syrians burn themselves to ashes - how does any of this matter to me and mine ??

The US government in its naive crusade of conscience is once again "interfering" in the Middle East for no tangible benefit to the American citizen except perhaps giving more jobless-uneducated Arab "youth" opportunities to master the art of war and murder.

These Syrians are the same people who danced on the streets when America was attacked, the same people who bayed for Jewish blood in their many attempts to attack Israel. The same people who scorn Western ideals of secularism, freedom of speech and demanded the cartoonists for Jyllands-Posten be killed for drawing a couple of pictures. These are the same people who support Hezbullah - a groupe directly responsible for the deaths of Americans, support Hamas, the PLO and various other terrorist groups.

The Salafi's and the Baathist cabal have been murdering each other for decades, now they finally found a way to legitimize their murdering as a call for "freedom".Nothings changed Why should anybody in the West care ?

It is apparent that there are truth is not conveyed in some Western media whether it be on tv or in the form of articles. All you need to do is open your eyes to see the truth on what is happening in Syria and the Middle East as a whole. There is the threat of the spread of Muslim Extremists who are growing exponentially in numbers as they continue to recruit rapidly targeting the poor and uneducated. Luckily for the Syrian Citizens little are uneducated and are not easily won over by this extreme form of Islam. Moderate Muslims are being targeted, Christians are being executed and the educated and highly skilled are being assassinated. Those that oppose the Syrian government, with the weapons, are not after democracy but rather to enforce their views and beliefs on the citizens of Syria. The majority of these 'rebels' as they call them have proven to have come from outside Syria, this being uncovered by Kofi Annan and the appointed Arab Union Delegation, who is later sacked by the State of Qatar for saying this. The US led its war on terrorism for the Twin Tower bombings which killed over 3000 people, the US fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Britain, France and other European countries experienced the same. Syria is fighting this same war against terrorism, and any Westerner can ask any moderate muslim or Arab Christian and they will tell you that Muslim Extermism is the issue in Syria. Syria needs a change in reforms, but handing over the country to Muslim Extremists defeats the whole purpose for change for the Syrian people.

Unfortunately the article does not tell the whole story in its true and correct form. By doing some research, without relying on the one article to reach a conclusion on what is happening in Syria, for example, Bab Amr in Homs was a strong hold for a Muslim Extremist group recruiting big numbers in the Homs region. The families of the neighborhood were being terrorized and held as hostage for many months by the Extremist group. Victims were kidnapped and taken hostage, some of which were women from minority groups, raped and then killed. Victim families came forward and requested from the Syrian army to take action. The Syrian Army despite its might and capability against this group was unable to attack Bab Amr due to the innocent civilians who were held captive. It took the Syrian Army 5 months to evacuate the citizens and evacuate the area little by little until it as finally cleansed.

Against the Syrian Army - 5000 Yemeni AQ, 2000 Tunisian AQ, AQ in the Maghreb, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group leading the Syrian Free Army, hundreds of AQ from Iraq, al Nusra from various, esp. Saudi, thousands of others including jihadists, bandits and conscripted convicts from e.g. Saudi and Turkey, and 10,000 Taliban as I recall. They are trained by AQ in Derna Libya, Benghazi, by US and UK in Jordan and Turkey and paid and armed through/by US, UK, FR, IL clients such as Qatar, Saudi, Croatia, Benghazi etc.

I suspect too many here don't look further than propaganda outlets like CNN.

Having an NSA satellite to take the image of the smoke of the pipeline destroyed from directly above this location at the same time it was done adds another dimension to the story, as who was seeing for them there's no Syrian Army forces nearby so they can carry out this heinous crime leaving tens of thousands of civilians without electricity and heating fuel in one of the coldest winters last year.

No thanks to Obama, Cameron, Hollande and before them those who stepped down Sarkozy and 'Hitlary Killington' for large portions of the destruction: Herds of Al Qaeda FSA mercenaries, NATO's best asset, infest a neighborhood, commit massacres, film them and send them to their Vuvuzellas (NATO's mainstream media) then receive the Syrian Army to get back the land and secure the Syrian citizens from the horror of Tora Bora cavemen. Infesting more neighborhoods especially those with multiple ethnic residents to create strife for further destruction and waiting for the government to collapse then installing a puppet regime allowing western corporations to rebuild the devastated country and take control of the riches.

Guess what, the government never collapsed because the Syrians whom taught the world the Alphabet 7000 years ago, have that long of history seeing other empires collapse whenever interfering in Syria leading to the known Syrian Curse, and the US, UK and France just made their stupidest mistake ever. Syrians support their 'brutal', 'dictatorship', 'oppressing' 'dictator' over anything else that might come due to the Arab Spring that brought fanatic Islamists to power in each country they infested. At least their 'brutal, oppressing dictator' has provided them with subsidized essentials including 1/5th price their neighboring countries pay for gas, fuel, bread, electricity power in addition to free education from 0 to PHD in the majority of science fields and scholarship grants to students all over the world for the majors not available in the country, free healthcare for illness from headache to cancer, in addition to many other life matters. Made Syria self-efficient in food, consumables industries, clothing, medicine, and even exported: food, medicine, electricity.. to neighbors and countries abroad. One of the very few countries having Nil Public and Foreign debt before the crisis with an expanding reserves in foreign currencies at least $18 billion in dollars, not to mention gold, local currency at 600 billion in reserves..etc.

Just to get the freedom to curse and swear at the president in public is not worth the destruction of the nation and subjugating their country to western powers, and importing Saudi & Qatari democracies.. Cursing and swearing in an Eastern and Middle Eastern society is considered impudence, maybe in western countries it's acceptable, but it doesn't fit in our societies.

Countries with colonial and criminal past, especially towards our people, don't have any say when it comes to human rights, especially again that we know Al Qaeda was found and is supported by the CIA, it's always available to commit atrocities paving the way for 'humanitarian intervention' by those who found it at the beginning, it just comes under different names each time: Freedom Fighters, Free Army, Armed Opposition, Nusra Front, Jund ul Sham, Fateh al Islam, Islamists, Sex Jihadists, Abu Sayyaf, Jamaa Islamiyeh... (what was the name given to them in Mali?)..

They fool you, they keep fooling you and they enjoy fooling you, not because they're smart, it's because you're foolable.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he has a vision of a new world order made up of 10 other nations in the middle east and beyond.........
............Makes me wonder..........

..........Revelation 17:12-13..........
12 "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. 13 These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast.

PRESSTV EXCLUSIVEThe Syrian army officially confirms having targeted and killed a commander of the terrorist affiliated al-Nusra Front in the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr.The terrorist leader was pronounced dead following a qualitative raid of militant headquarters in the northern city of Aleppo.

Units of the Armed Forces on Thursday destroyed a number of cars, some equipped with machineguns, in the villages of al-Shindafiyah, Abo al-Dababir and Rahhoum in Homs countryside, said a military source.

All terrorists inside the cars were killed, noted the source which added that army units in the countryside of the al-Qseir city province also destroyed four cars, killing all terrorists inside.

In Damascus countryside, authorities seized a tanker loaded with weapons and ammunition in al-Sayyeda Zainab area and relate the tanker was loaded with some Weapons listed as having and Israeli point of origin.

Mass Rally in Support of the Army in al-Midan Neighborhood in Aleppo

Citizens of al-Midan neighborhood in Aleppo marched through the city's streets in support of the Syrian Arab Army and in appreciation of its sacrifices to restore security and eliminate terrorism in the country.

The participants raised Syrian flags and placards calling on national opposition to engage in the political solution to end the crisis and preserve the Syrian unity and sovereignty.

Those gathered condemned the criminal acts perpetrated by terrorists and as well chanted slogans against Rajab Tayib Ardogan's government in Turkey denounced as a complicit partner in shedding innocent Syrian blood, robbing production factories and assisting in a plot to destroy Aleppo and leave it in ruins.

They also called for an acceleration that has seen the elimination of both terrorist dens and illegal activity in re-affirming that Syrian people are ready to defend their land even at the cost of their souls.

@MarioH.Casuga That funny, considering how it is the West and the Sunni Arab nations like Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia etc that are aiding and funding this "rebellion", while Iran and Russia are being pressured into stopping aid to Syria.

It is cognitive dissonance to preach peace and distribute weapons like candy at the same time.

Classic false-dichotomy fallacy. Yes, there is no denying that the Assadi regime did accomplish certain things, but at what expense? The Syrian people have been oppressed for decades now. Corruption is extremely wide-spread. People with power get to do whatever they please and get away with it (I have personally witnessed it), whereas if you are a regular Joe, then God be with you. Doing almost anything requires you to bribe people and lower yourself.

The Assadi regime continues to push forward empty words, pushing for 'Arabism', and 'patriotism'; using religion to serve them (see the recent joke Fatwas that came out recently); and using Israel as an excuse for them to continue to oppress their people. Oh it's okay, it's all in the service of the bigger goal of defeating the enemy. You can live poorly and miserably, but it's okay, we're fighting Israel! Complete fallacy and delusion.

The Assadi regime has blood on their hands. They continue to push their false-dichotomy fallacy: it's either us, the 'Israel-fighting' regime, or it's 'them', the Islamist terrorists, who are pro-Israel and serve NATO. What a joke! Complete ignorance, and living in an alternate reality.

@rorywong654 In my reasonable experience, Syrians are well educated and able to write, spell and punctuate their language significantly better than you are. Go take some English lessons before you criticize others, osshale.

@Mazo@MarioH.Casuga Using logic, your argument holds water...but sadly, history's repeating itself in Syria. Bashar's father, Hafez, killed over 20,000 innocent Syrian citizens to quell their designs to toppling his government. Now Bashar has almost quadrupled his dad's kill output (over 70,000) and if he's allowed to rule till his natural death with one of his son's succeeding him, what will happen next? Have you heard of the age-old saying "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree"? He then might kill half a million, who knows?

Also take this into account, the Assad family has ruled Syria with an iron-fist for quite sometime enriching themselves at the expense of the poor, voiceless and less-privileged. 99% of Syria's wealth go to their coffers while the rest of country goes hungry. Do you still think Assad has a legitimate claim to power after all the heinous atrocities he and his dad had done to Syria?

@YehudaElyada - To Yahuda Elyada - I am quite amused at your words "tyrant" and "oppress" and so much more. (you make me laugh). May I make a suggestion: look between your own boundaries first, prior to looking across the border. Your government bombs, kills, detains numbers of Palestinians each day for the last 70 years. Israeli settlers taking Palestinian land each day and building new settlements. Strangling Palestinians with the wall built around their cities, so they are at the mercy of Israeli government for the essentials, food, water, medicine. Prior to teaching the Syrians a lesson, perhaps you should focus on the smaller Hezbollah prior to taking on Syria. Times have changed and the Arabs of the past that there were working with the Israeli agenda in secret have come out in the open and have revealed where their loyalties lie. Everything is in the open and nothing is secret. Your people have indoctrinated the minds of the Western peoples of the atrocities you suffered at the hands of the Nazi's but it is clear that your government and the previous ones have committed far worse atrocities then that you suffered in Word War 2.

@YehudaElyada hehe, thanks Yehuda, and you're reporting from Israel I assume based on your name? And when you guys are cornered you shoot the messenger. Why not debating the content of my comment instead of attacking me personally? I know that Bashar Al Assad is haunting every criminal in the world, because his steadfastness with the support of the Syrian people against an unprecedented wave of terror supported bluntly by the old colonial and new imperial states in the world, over 40 countries contributing directly in money, men and weapons against a single nation and that single nation with its leader Bashar Al Assad is standing tall and will defeat your attacks and not only that, we'll make sure each culprit got involved in killing any Syrian or contributed in the destruction of our country will pay very dearly, I promise you. Especially you consumed all your weapons and got yourself defaced to the point of bankruptcy proven by you in attacking me personally instead of finding anything to debate in my comments..

Thanks again, hope you realize you can't occupy Palestine for long especially when Syria declares victory over your terrorists, it'll be when you should start the countdown to your going back to Poland with your family if you don't want to endanger them. The humiliation Hizbullah delivered to your fake state is nothing compared with what's coming, your back is broken and you're on the receiving side now, go back to Poland as long as you can before it's too late.

@azimuth i think you meant like how democratic is the US itself?! Which is by definition a republic and not anywhere near a democracy, except if you consider going to ballot to choose someone and someone else with more money reaches the post.. or maybe with more lobbies on his side.. or maybe let's not forget a nation with 320 million citizens having only 2 political parties controlling it for more than double the time Assads were in power in Syria.. or maybe having dynasties ruling the US: George Bush W & his father H, while his brother a governor of a state.. Bill Clinton and his wife Hitlary Killington (http://j.mp/Wx8oGt) or the Kennedy family? Shall i go further? Or the European dynasties? or their best allies: the Saudi and Qataris wanting to promote democracy and freedom in Syria? At least we are in Syria several light years ahead of all the aforementioned, at least we are not controlled by the bankers, for instance.

@azimuth You seem to be under the impression that Syria was some quasi- shangrila paradise and Assad suddenly swept in and unleashed his depredations on the benighted Syrian people.

Syria was and always has been a savage and barbaric place where they were busy murdering each other after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. It was only the jackboot of tyranny and dictatorship that brought some semblance of order to the chaos that was Syria.

Today suddenly Western citizens are learning of new places on the map and their long absent compassion is overflowing in all the wrong places. All those "poor Syrian rebels" who are recipient of the oh-so saccharine Western compassion were the same ones who danced on the streets while the WTC towers came down, the same people who support a global Ummah spanning the Middle East and the same people who are unanimous in their fanatical hatred of the state of Israel.

Let the Syrians fight it out on their streets and let their cities burn. The savagery of Assad or the Salafist Islamists is no different. All of them believe that there are 72 virgins waiting for them as they revel in their barbarism . Your attempts at peddling peace only robs them of their excuse to indulge their baser instincts .

@azimuth Arabism is an empty word? Is EU an empty word and it contains countries speaking different languages while Arabs speak one language and have one history and connected land?

As for 'people with power get to do whatever they please' are you hinting to George W Bush with his poodle Tony Blaire invading Iraq against the wills of their own nations not to speak about the entire world? Or the drone man Obama sending his killing machines to harvest tens of civilians under the guise of fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Yemen? Or the bankers in control of the US bailing themselves on the account of the same people who they later on evict from their houses for not being able to pay a couple of mortgage payments?

I think corruption is not a limited case, I'm very happy with a corrupted state that offers what Assad offered us, Syrians, before Saudi and Qatari Wahhabi Sex Jihadists came to democratize us.

And of course the Assadi state and its army has a lot of blood on its hands, it's the bloods of the NATO's most valuable asset: Al Qaead terrorists.. They're there whenever a country is to be destroyed, they go and pave the way for the war on terror and such Sheeple like yourself cheer for the elimination of them at any cost but in the Syrian case you have to support them, because Assad pushes for 'empty words' like 'Arabism' and 'patriotism', you'd be very happy with him if he was pushing 'subjugation' and turning into a 'puppet' regime in the hands of the west.

By the way, can you explain how Islamist (not Islamic) terrorists never attacked Israel? And they only attacked countries that US put on its hit-list? And don't bring up 9/11, it's too silly..

@dinsel@MarkFisher They live in their alternate reality, where everything is a plot and conspiracy against the 'great nation' that the cursed and wretched Assadi regime built, at the expense of the lives of many Syrians and others.

The extremely ironic thing is that the same despicable regime is using videos that were created by AlQaida in order to declare and promote 'holy war' against the 'terrorists'. It is a sign of their clueless-ness and utter incompetence and ignorance. I hope their end is near. Time for a new Syria where we have actual freedoms and equality for all, regardless of race, sect, and religion (or lack thereof).

@YehudaElyadaYou are pressingly wrong here. Suri owns “independence” to Baathists
party which came in to power with the help of USA (for the right people) for
the reason: to propagate the secular Arab Nationalism and national independence
idea in the region, and to confront the hellish heritage of Anglo-French
mandate: fundamental Islam - Wahhabism. - The very same and essential enemy of
Israel. I`m sure that you understand importance of latest point.

Secular Arab Nationalism was developed and defined by
pioneers of Baathist party – elite academics, intellectuals from Sorbonne
University – very right people for the “job”.

The project
functioned very well until US Neocon administration / clan, decided to forge
the alliance with Wahhabis (Saudis) to implement the “Great Middle East Project”.
Here, Anglo-American-Saudi alliance decided to sabotage and discard Baathists party,
by all means, as the main obstacle to progress the GMDEP.

It didn’t cross my mind to argue with you, your fanciful “facts” or your love of the great leader, Assad “the lion”. I just wanted to explain to naive readers of Time, those unschooled in the politics of the Middle East, how come a person claiming to be a Syrian patriot is offering his unconditioned support to a tyrant responsible for horrendous atrocities against his own people. Yes, I’m an Israeli, but I’m also deeply saddened to watch the slaughter in Aleppo and other places in Syria, where the civil war has long deteriorated into a war crimes contest. And, please don’t try to intimidate me with jingoistic war propaganda. We’d hate to teach you the same lesson a fifth time in 65 years. Because this time maybe the Israeli army might not stop 30 km short of Damascus. And regarding your suggestion of relocation to Poland let me tell you that my family lived in Jerusalem a hundred years before Sykes and Picot fashioned modern Syria from the debris of the Ottoman Empire. Even your “independence” you owe to the western democracies that you charge with sabotaging the great Assad paradise.

@rorywong654@dinsel And who says they r? I see no US made weapons being used by the rebels. Majority of it is Russian made weapons. I guess russia is the one doing the supplying of both sides eh? And why would the US designate Nusra a terrorist group if they were supporting them genius?